Affordable and Thoughtful: The 21st Century Robot Forger

Robot forgery's been around for centuries now, really. Autopen machines to recreate signatures have existed since Thomas Jefferson began using one in 1804. This graceful robotic mannequin used to write advertising in store windows in 1929. Some authors have elaborated and experiemented with them for remote, but personalized book signings in the 21st century. There's now even a Torah-writing robot that can complete a scroll in 3 months, versus a human year, though something ineffable's lost without the goose quill and prayers. But now, we enter the age of the completely flexible and more affordable robotic cyber-forger. This is the technology behind several start-ups offering to “handwrite” notes as a personal service. According to Aviva Rutkin in New Scientist:

Customers can choose from a number of preset fonts, designed to look messy, stylish, or formal. Or for $199, Bond will mimic a customer's own handwriting, and for $499 they will invite you to work with handwriting experts for a day to improve it first. Bond also offers options based on the handwriting of famous people such as Sigmund Freud.

Why, of course. Even reproducing the handwriting of famous people. Or embodying any characteristic one chooses to display. What could possibly go wrong? I should also note this—ha ha—from an owner of one of the emerging firms:

“We're not trying to fool people into believing that someone wrote the note for them,” says Sonny Caberwal, founder of Bond, a New York City handwriting service that launched in November. “We're trying to give people a tool to express themselves in the way they want.”

Whatever you say. Write on. Now where did I stash that pile of aged parchment?

Leading image and much more cool historical info at Cyberneticzoo.